


Under the Silence

by sanctuary_for_all



Series: A Thousand Ways [16]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 16:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16098995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctuary_for_all/pseuds/sanctuary_for_all
Summary: Steve went still. "List?" he asked carefully.Danny didn't look up. "The list of things we don't say to each other for the sake of our continued friendship."





	Under the Silence

**Author's Note:**

> But under the silence of  
> what we say to each other,  
> is the much more articulate  
> silence of what we don't say  
> to each other, a storm of things  
> unspoken, coiled, reserved,  
> appointed, ticking away  
> like a clock attached  
> to a time-bomb: crash, fire,  
> demolition wound up  
> in the quietly, almost tenderly,  
> small, familiar things unspoken.  
> -Tennessee Williams

Steve woke up to darkness, a blanket draped over his shoulders and a football game he didn't recognize playing low on the TV. He'd known where he was before he opened his eyes – only in the Williams household did he ever end up with a blanket – which made it less of a surprise to see his partner on the other side of the couch. Danny had fallen asleep as well, half slid down so that his head was nearly resting against the arm of the couch. He had faint frown lines between his brows, as if even unconsciousness wasn't enough to stop him from worrying.

Steve itched to smooth the lines away with his thumb, the desire to touch Danny as familiar to him by now as the sound of his own name. It was more dangerous now than it usually was, the quiet between them soft and close enough to feel more like a dream than reality. In dreams, it was far too easy to pretend.

So he made himself stand up. His phone said it was just after 3 a.m., and even though the kids were at Rachel's this week Danny had a hell of a time getting back to sleep once something woke him up. If he went into stealth mode, though, he should be able to get the blanket on Danny and sneak out the door unnoticed. He'd once led an entire team into an enemy compound without alerting a single guard. Surely he could--

The moment the blanket touched Danny's shoulders, however, he stirred. "Steve?" he asked blearily, attention rapidly sharpening as he scanned Steve. "You're about to try and drive home, aren't you," he said flatly, "instead of just kicking me off the couch so you can get some real sleep and head over to your house in the morning."

The implied "you idiot" in the words would have been comforting, if not for the sharp bite of worry just beneath them. Steve heard it in Danny's voice more and more often, these days, and he hated it every single time. "I'm fine, Danny. I promise."

He knew that was the wrong thing to say when Danny flinched a little, leaning forward to scrub his hands across his face. "I'll promise to never mention how scared you make me, but you have to promise me you'll stop saying you're fine. We'll put them both on the list."

Steve went still. "List?" he asked carefully.

Danny didn't look up. "The list of things we don't say to each other for the sake of our continued friendship."

Steve's stomach twisted hard. He knew all about the list, but his version mostly included variations on how much he was in love with Danny. He hadn't known Danny knew about the list. He hadn't _wanted_ him to know about the list.

He let out a breath that wasn't nearly as steady as he meant it to be. "I didn't know we had a list."

That was enough to make Danny lift his head, shooting him a "you've got to be kidding me" look. "You're seriously telling me there's _nothing_ you specifically don't bring up because you don't want to deal with the conversation that would follow?"

"Nothing." He sat back down next to Danny, needing to be close enough to see any sign of pity. Danny wouldn't push if he kept denying it, but if he knew Steve would be able to see it on his face. "I'm an open book."

Danny made a disbelieving noise. "Written in an alien language, maybe." Then he sighed, leaning back against the couch. "I guess that just means you're a better person than I am. Color me wildly unsurprised."

The tension inside Danny eased a little, but not as much as he'd hoped. Danny might not know Steve's secret, but it seemed like he'd been screwing up in other ways. Danny had no trouble yelling at him about all kinds of things. What was so bad that he didn't feel like he could even bring it up? "Can you tell me some of the things?" he asked quietly.

That made Danny suddenly sit up. "Oh _no_. Did you not hear the part where we don't talk about these things for the sake of our _friendship_?"

Steve shook his head, absolutely certain. "Nothing you say will ruin our friendship."

Danny hesitated. "You don't know that."

Steve would die, kill, and take down governments for Danny. The one thing he wasn't entirely sure he could do for Danny is walk away from him. Choosing to do it himself? Out of the question. "I do, Danno."

Danny raised his eyebrows. "Well, off the top of my head, one of these days I'm going to punch your mother in the face. I don't know when, I don't know what the exact circumstances are going to be, but it's inevitable."

That startled a smile out of Steve. "I completely understand that."

Danny's own lips curved upward briefly, a light that was almost immediately swamped by worry. "Which means that's probably enough for tonight."

This time, the twist in Steve's chest was from something else entirely. "I know how much you worry about me."

"Do you?" The bleakness in his voice hurt worse than a wound would have. Danny closed his eyes. "I think about you dying every single damn day, Steve. Every. Single. Day."

Steve's heart broke. "Danny...."

"I try to plan for it, to work out what in the hell I'm going to do when it happens, but every time I try to picture it my brain shuts down." He gestured to an imaginary wall, still not opening his eyes. "There's just this wall of screaming."

Steve swallowed, remembering the look on Danny's face just after he found out his brother was dead. "I know how hard it was after you lost Matt."

"'Matt?'" Danny opened his eyes, incredulous. "Steve, you dying is going to make that look like a fucking _cakewalk_." He leaned forward, hitting a closed fist against his chest. "Do you have _any_ idea how deep you are in here? How much shit inside me has gotten moved around to make room for you? You're half my foundation now." His voice cracked. "And when you're gone, I'm going to be so damn full of holes that it'll be all I can do to stay standing for the kids. And no matter how long I live, all those empty places inside me won't ever fit anybody but you."

Steve stopped breathing. "Danny...." He should have a thousand words – a million of them – but he'd held them all back so long he had no idea how to make them come now.

Danny, misinterpreting the silence, shook his head. "No. There's nothing you could say right now that I haven't already heard a thousand times in my head. As long as you keep your promise and this doesn't screw up our friendship, I'll be fine." He stood up. "But if you try to drive home at this time of the morning, I swear I'll—"

Heart threatening to explode out of his chest, Steve stood and pulled him into a kiss that tried to say everything he didn't have the words for. Danny was frozen for a moment, too surprised to react, and Steve jerked back in the sudden, horrified certainty that he'd made a mistake. But this time Danny grabbed him, holding on tight, and for a breathless moment they just stared at each other with a thousand different questions in their eyes.

Then they were kissing again, bright and hot as the Hawaii sun. Every emotion they'd both swallowed back tried to rush out of them all at once, the years of kisses they'd denied themselves all trying to crash together into a single moment. It seared through Steve like a fireball, leaving everything it touched utterly transformed.

When they broke apart for air, Danny's eyes glowed. "Since years of not talking about certain things has apparently made us miss out on several opportunities to do _that_ , I'm actually going to say out loud that I'm about to drag you back to my bedroom."

Steve just grinned, leaning in for another kiss. "I like the sound of that."

**Author's Note:**

> Come check out my [original fiction,](https://jennifferwardell.wixsite.com/mybooks) my [blog,](http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com) or say hi to me on [Tumblr](http://sanctuaryforalluniverses.tumblr.com)!


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